Tag Archives: staged photography

Today I would like to derive your attention to an exceptional artist: Gregory Crewdson. Although he would firmly be considered a photographer, I call him artist intentionally. He images are all thoroughly staged and composed by the photographer himself in a Hollywood-like style; Crewdson sometimes blocks streets or areas for several days in order to be able to shoot. Truly created like this, his photographs still have nothing in them, that would be considered supernatural or abnormal. On the contrary: they seem like normal, everyday scenes that could be just across the street. What makes them so magical, so breathtaking, so ‘heartbeatstopping’ is their aura of peril, of horror. They seem like scenes from an Alfred Hitchcock movie, those, which describe the climax of attention: the calm before the storm.

What is also so very special about Crewdson’s work, is that they show one moment, a scene, that needs to have a history and a future. Each frame leaves the onlooker wondering, what happened and is a world in itself. Here, the saying: “One picture says more than a thousand words” can truly be applied. This is also, what is so wonderful about them: More than any other works of art, Crewdson’s photographs encourage people to spin stories around them, very individual stories that might tell more about the person itself, than about the picture.

All images also show the deepest fear of humans: absolute loneliness and isolation; the subjects strangely are in the center of the picture but alienated from the scene itself.

Like this:

the person behind the scenes

Hi! My name is Stella Canessa, 18 yrs, originally from Germany but I study at Brown University.
Both humans and animals can feel but only humans can express themselves. Art is always an expression of a human's chief feelings. Art therefore is the only media that presents a human's soul and is necessarily existing with us. In my blog I report about those art works that inspire and move me, hoping to spread their message to you.